How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
HALE: [...] I said, I'm going to see if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone. I spoke to Wright about it once before and he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet—I guess you know about how much he talked himself [...] (10)
Here, we get at the root cause of Mrs. Wright's isolation. What is it? Her husband's love of isolation. He's the kind of dude that doesn't want anybody up in his business. When you think about it, is that really such a crime? Maybe, if he'd married another isolation junky like himself, he wouldn't have ended up at the end of a rope.
Quote #2
MRS. HALE: (examining the skirt) Wright was close. I think maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even belong to the Ladies Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her part, and then you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. (158)
At this point, Mrs. Hale hasn't quite opened her eyes to how lonely and isolated Mrs. Wright was. In this line, she puts the idea out there that Mrs. Wright was too cheap or just didn't have the money to go out and hang with the other ladies. The play leaves some things mysterious here. Did Mr. Wright not allow his wife to go out? Did he not allow her to buy nice clothes so that she was actually embarrassed to be seen in public? Was she just too depressed to go out and make friends? The world may never know.
Quote #3
MRS. HALE: [...] She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But that—oh, that was thirty years ago. (158)
Now Mrs. Hale paints a pretty picture of social Minnie Foster was when she was young. Notice how the play uses the image of her singing in a choir to show just how un-isolated she was. There are few things that are more communal, right? This image of the happy, outgoing Minnie Foster is night and day to what we're told about the lonely, depressed, and murderous Mrs. Wright.
Quote #4
MRS. HALE: [...] I wish if they're going to find any evidence they'd be about it. I don't like this place.
MRS. PETERS: But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale. It would be lonesome for me sitting here alone.
MRS. HALE: It would, wouldn't it? (97-99)
Mrs. Wright's loneliness and isolation was so off the charts that it's almost like a ghost that haunts the place. A real ghost might even be preferable to the cloud of sadness that hangs over it all. In this moment in the play, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale take comfort in what almost feels like a haunted house. It's pretty awesome how Glaspell creates such an intense atmosphere with nothing more than the way that the characters interact with each other.
Quote #5
MRS. HALE: [...] But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I—(looking around the room)—wish I had.
MRS. PETERS: But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale—your house and your children. (99-100)
Check out how Mrs. Peters doesn't mention Mr. Hale in her description of Mrs. Hale's life. Is Mrs. Hale just as distant from her husband as Mrs. Wright was? Is this a world where husbands and wives are just expected to be isolated from each other? Sounds like a good marriage counselor could've mopped up in this town.
Quote #6
MRS. HALE: I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't cheerful—and that's why I ought to have come. I—I've never liked this place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see the road. I dunno what it is, but it's a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now—(shakes her head) (108)
Ah, man. As if Mrs. Wright's isolation situation couldn't get worse. On top of her husband being totally closed off, the Wright house is also geographically isolated. It's down in a little valley and cut off the road. Mrs. Wright was totally cut off from the outside world.
Quote #7
MRS. PETERS: Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs. Hale. Somehow we just don't see how it is with other folks until—something comes up. (102)
Mrs. Peters gets at a deep idea here. She might be an Iowa farmwife, but the concept she throws out here is straight out the work of high falutin' Existentialist philosophers like Sartre. Basically, it's the idea that we're all alone. We bounce through the world in our little subjective bubbles, and we can never truly know what's going on inside somebody else. So, in a way, we're all totally isolated, no matter how many people we have around us.
Quote #8
MRS. HALE: [...] But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him—(shivers) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone, (pauses, her eye falling on) I should think she would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it?
MRS PETERS: I don't know, unless it got sick and died. (105-106)
This set of lines is crucial to understanding the ending of the play. Mr. Wright was so cold and hard to get along with, that Mrs. Wright's only friend was a canary. The canary's singing was the one and only thing that broke Mrs. Wright's awful isolation. The bigger symbolism seems to be that the canary represents the one bright part of Minnie Foster's soul that hasn't been crushed by the brutal isolation of being Mrs. Wright. Hey, we never said this play was cheerful.
Quote #9
MRS. HALE: (her own feeling not interrupted) If there'd been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful—still, after the bird was still.
MRS. PETERS: (something within her speaking) I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died—after he was two years old, and me with no other then— (132-133)
This is a breakthrough moment for Mrs. Peters, who connects the isolation she felt when her first child died to the isolation Mrs. Wright felt after the bird died. It's this moment of emotional connection that pushes Mrs. Peters to go up against the law at the end of the play. It's ironic and more than a little sad that the thing that ultimately connects these two women is the shared experience of feeling like they're not connecting to anything at all.
Quote #10
MRS. HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be—for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it's all just a different kind of the same thing. (138)
Boom. Mrs. Peters puts the theme of isolation on steroids. Now, it's not just about Mrs. Wright's isolation; it's about the isolation of all women. By showing us Mrs. Hale's guilt over not reaching out to Mrs. Wright, it seems like the play is making a plea for all women to reach out to other and somehow break the isolation that traps them all. What do you think? Is this possible? How can women uniting help to ease their isolation?